RBQ-2A Repetitive Behaviour Screener

A free twenty-question self-assessment measuring restricted and repetitive behaviours in adults. It takes about four minutes. Your answers are private and your score report is sent to you by email.

What restricted and repetitive behaviours actually are

Restricted and repetitive behaviours - usually shortened to RRBs - are one of the two core diagnostic domains for autism. In the diagnostic criteria they sit alongside social communication as an equal half of the definition, not as a secondary feature.

The word "repetitive" tends to conjure the childhood stereotype: rocking, hand flapping, lining objects up. Those are real, but in adults RRBs much more often look like something else entirely. A route you always take. A meal you eat every day without tiring of it. A collection organised to a system nobody else would think of. Deep, absorbing interests. Needing to know the plan. The particular unpleasantness of an unexpected change, out of proportion to the change itself. Movements and sensory habits that are still there but have become small and private enough that nobody notices.

None of those are problems by default. Several of them are among the better parts of being autistic. This questionnaire measures how present they are, not whether they should be.

What the RBQ-2A is

The Adult Repetitive Behaviours Questionnaire-2 was developed by Sarah Barrett and colleagues and published in 2015, adapted from the RBQ-2, which had been designed for a parent or carer to complete about someone else. The RBQ-2A is the version autistic adults complete about themselves, and it is a validated measure.

Twenty items, each scored from 1 to 3, giving a total between 20 and 60. The items load onto two distinct domains that are scored separately, because they behave differently from one another.

Why this covers ground the other screeners miss

Most widely used adult autism screeners are weighted heavily toward the social and communication side of the picture. The AQ-50 devotes three of its five domains to it; the RAADS-14 is built almost entirely around social interaction, social anxiety and sensory reactivity.

That leaves the other half of the diagnostic definition thinly measured. Someone whose autism presents most strongly through routine, sameness and absorbing interests - rather than through visible social difficulty - can come out looking unremarkable on a social-weighted screener while the repetitive domain goes largely unasked about.

If you have taken other screeners and the results did not seem to describe you, this one asks about a different half of the question. It is also useful alongside the CAT-Q, for a related reason: masking suppresses what other people can see, but it does much less to the internal need for sameness. What was hidden and what was never there are not the same thing, and self-report is where that difference shows.

The two domains

Repetitive sensory and motor behaviours - scored 9 to 27

Nine items about movement and sensory experience: repeated movements, stimming, fascination with particular sensations, textures, sounds or visual patterns, and sensory habits that regulate rather than entertain.

Adults often score lower here than their childhood selves would have, and the reason is frequently suppression rather than absence. Many autistic adults have moved their stims somewhere less visible rather than stopping.

Insistence on sameness - scored 11 to 33

Eleven items about routine, predictability and resistance to change: doing things the same way, needing to know what is coming, difficulty when a plan shifts, and strong preferences about how things are arranged or ordered.

This domain tends to hold steadier across adulthood, and it is the one more closely associated with anxiety in the research. It is also the domain most often mistaken by other people for inflexibility or fussiness, which is generally not what is happening.

How it is scored

You get a total out of 60 plus a separate score for each domain, each placed in a low, mild or high band.

Low - total 20 to 25

Few restricted or repetitive behaviours reported.

Mild - total 26 to 35

Some are present at a level worth noting.

High - total 36 to 60

Restricted and repetitive behaviours are a substantial feature of your everyday experience.

Within the domains, repetitive sensory and motor behaviours run low at 9 to 11, mild at 12 to 16 and high at 17 to 27. Insistence on sameness runs low at 11 to 14, mild at 15 to 19 and high at 20 to 33. The two scores frequently diverge, and the gap between them is usually the more interesting result.

What a high score means

It means this domain is a real and present part of how you live, which is diagnostically relevant and worth raising if you are pursuing an assessment. It does not mean anything is wrong.

The practical question a high insistence-on-sameness score raises is not how to reduce it but how much of your life is currently built to accommodate it. Routine and predictability are usually cheaper to arrange than people expect, and the cost of going without them is usually higher than it looks from outside.

What this screener is not

This assessment is for information and self-reflection only. It is not a diagnostic tool and does not replace professional evaluation. Restricted and repetitive behaviours are one half of the diagnostic picture, so a high score here is not by itself an indication of autism, and a low score does not rule it out.

Repetitive behaviour also occurs in other conditions, obsessive-compulsive disorder among them, where its function and the feeling attached to it are quite different. Distinguishing between them is exactly the sort of thing a full assessment is for.

What happens after you finish

You receive your total, both domain scores and a report by email. Nothing is shared with anyone unless you ask us to send it somewhere. If you would like to talk the result through, or want to know what a formal assessment involves, you can tell us at the end and we will follow up.

If you want a formal assessment

We provide adult diagnostic assessment - autism, ADHD, or both together - along with add-on evaluations for alexithymia and pathological demand avoidance. If you need documentation rather than a diagnosis, our page on neuroaffirming accommodations explains that process.

You can also meet the clinicians, read our frequently asked questions, or browse the rest of our free tools on the self-discovery page.

About Adult Autism Assessment

We assess and support neurodivergent adults - people seeking a first diagnosis in adulthood, people who have known for years and want documentation, and people who are still working out what fits. Our approach is neurodiversity-affirming: an assessment here is about accurate self-understanding and practical accommodation, not about finding out what is wrong with you.

Adult Autism Assessment is part of New Path Family of Therapy Centers, Inc.